As an avowed atheist living among a sea of believers (both locally and on the Internet), I have spent a lot of time discussing my beliefs (or lack thereof, as the case may be). The purpose of this blog is not to prove the non-existence of God or "de-convert" anybody from their faith, but simply to preserve some of these discussions and allow me to flesh them out through the process of writing them down, as well as to share them with anybody who might be interested in reading them.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

The Incomprehensible and/or Imperceptible God

In
a previous post I wrote about the hypocrisy and hubris evidenced by
people who claim to be the only ones who “really” understand what the
Bible actually says (see The Hypocrisy and Hubris of Biblical Interpretation).
The basic point was that it was incredibly arrogant for anybody to
think that (a) God actually wants people to know what He wants people to
do and (b) throughout all of human history nobody has been able to
figure it out until now (meaning, of course, that billions of people in
the past got it all wrong and were presumably doomed to go to Hell as a
result).

On a related note, I have recently run
into a similar group of incredibly arrogant theists. No, they don’t
claim to understand the Bible better than anybody else. Instead, they
claim to understand the essential nature of God better than anybody
else. God, you see, is wholly incomprehensible to the human mind and
therefore every single religion throughout history that has ever
described God in any particular way just got it wrong.

For example:

As
“God”, by the very nature of it’s defined and understood being, exists
outside of the physical Universe, there will be no exclusively
applicable, scientifically validated or accepted physical or empirical
“evidence” of the existence of God.

Or this:

God
is an inner experience that no words can explain. The one Creator God
created all other gods (small “g”) including the ones you named. None
are equal to the Creator God who created them.

The
truth of God can be known only by reaching beyond the relativity of the
material realm consciousness. It is an inner experience perceived when
the human’s consciousness is raised to its higher mind.

Those who
meditate know of the higher mind. There are no
outer writings or teachings that can explain God for the conscious mind
of the human and no religion is necessary for the inner experience of
God. When the human is ready the teacher will appear. That teacher is
the inner experience of God.

Now,
as I mentioned, this appears to be just another example of people who
are so full of themselves, who think they are so special, that they
honestly believe that they are among the select few in the history of
religion to truly understand who and what God “really” is. I’m sure it
makes them feel good about themselves, but what type of person can
believe in a God who actually cares about us and then thinks that
billions of humans throughout history just got it wrong.

However,
I think there may be more to it than just sheer arrogance. I suspect
that at least part of this has to do with an acknowledgement that there
really is no valid evidence to support a belief in the existence of God.
And rather than just admit this, these people have decided to redefine
God in a way that does not require any evidence. As with the deist
notion of a non-interventionist God, however, what’s left is an empty
meaningless concept of a god who doesn’t perform miracles, doesn’t
promise an afterlife or salvation, doesn’t provide moral guidance, etc.
It’s just yet another cop-out to justify why they can’t provide any
evidence for God’s existence.

Of
course, one question that never seems to get fully addressed is how, if
God is so incomprehensible, do people like this seem to know so much
about Him what He wants us to do, what He can do for us, etc. Now that’s the real mystery! For example, somebody recently posed the following question to me:

If the maker of a show is not inside the shoe, why do scientists expect God to be perceivable inside the universe?

The
clear implication being, of course, that the reason scientists have
never been able to detect God is because He is not actually perceptible
within this universe. Oh, really? The thing is, if you’re actually
talking about one of the many, many gods actually worshiped by anybody throughout all of recorded human history, its not scientists who expect “God” to be perceivable but believers
themselves. After all, the gods that people actually worship have not
exactly been shy about showing themselves (or allowing themselves to be
perceived, if you prefer) in the past, at least if you believe all the
various accounts in the various holy books that provide the only source
of knowledge that believers actually have regarding their gods.

It’s
rather disingenuous to claim that the particular “God” you worship
created the universe, performed a multitude of miracles, talked to
various people, sent down representatives to interact with humans, made
specific promises, provided moral guidelines for us to follow, etc.,
etc., etc., and then go on to claim that this “God” cannot be perceived
in any way. After all, if your “God” cannot be perceived in any way, how
do you even know about it in the first place?

Sure,
if you define your “God” as wholly imperceptible, then science has
nothing to say on the matter. But then again, neither do you. That’s
what imperceptible means. On the other hand, the minute you claim to be
able know anything whatsoever about your “God” (what it has said, done,
promised, etc.), then you are making testable claims that should be
verifiable by scientists.